


Wally

by Always_Worth_It, Lalijinx



Series: In Another Life [2]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:45:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Always_Worth_It/pseuds/Always_Worth_It, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalijinx/pseuds/Lalijinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy Carter writes a letter saying goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wally

Peggy heard the door gently shut. Alone again at last. She appreciated the effort her adult sons were putting in to taking care of her these days, but they all knew the most they could give was comfort. She was dying. She wanted to spend time with her family, but her boys were suffocating her. She was ninety years old. She had more than done her time on this Earth and she was ready to say a final goodbye.

 

There was a pad of paper sitting on her bedside table with a blue fountain pen atop it. She stretched out a hand and pulled them over to her, weary with even the small exertion. 

 

 _Dear Steve,_ she wrote. She wasn’t really sure why she wrote it. Steve was long dead, there was no reason she should be bothering to write him a letter. 

 

Still, he was the father of her twin sons. He hadn’t lived to see them born and raised, or even to find out she was pregnant. They had been together for a few years during the war, and she had been planning on telling him about the baby--later revealed to be babies, plural--the day that the chatter about Red Skull had come through. 

 

He had been about to hop on that plane when she realized that it was a permanent goodbye. She couldn’t tell him and distract him from the mission. He could never, _would_ never find out that he was going to be a father. She had pulled him back at the last second and given him one last kiss. It was soft, almost chaste, but she had hoped it would convey to him how much she loved him and everything else she knew she would never again get a chance to say.

 

 _I wanted to let you know that I don’t regret it,_ she began. _I know you would be rolling over in your grave if you had a proper one at the thought that you never got to make an honest woman out of me. I know you would have done right by me. You’re just that kind of guy._

 

She smiled softly, remembering how kind and gentle Steve had always been with her. He knew she was completely capable of handling and taking care of herself. She had never needed anyone else to look out for or protect her, but he was always around when she wanted someone there. He respected her independence and treated her like an equal, no matter what his peers may have said or done.

 

_Remember the day we met? You were so small, and absolutely adorable. I’d never seen someone so determined before in my life. It was strange. I felt like you were some sort of puppy that I just had to take home with me and never let go._

 

It was true. Steve had always been Captain America, even before he had the body to match what was already inside.

 

_You told me you had already tried to enlist a handful of times and Dr. Erskine was the only one who ever gave you a chance. I’m very glad he did. Your sons are, too._

 

The twins obviously never met their father, but Peggy had always taken care to tell them about him. They knew that he was Captain America, but they also knew the man he was before the serum and underneath all the pop culture wartime pizazz. He was the kind of man who would have made a wonderful father, and she wished every day that things had gone differently the day he had crashed in the ice.

 

_I never stopped loving you, you know. I know you’re gone, but you’re still here in my head sometimes. Before you say it, no, I’m not crazy. You’ve been here for me all along. Me and our boys._

 

_It’s been decades, but I’ve never looked at another man, not the way I looked at you. I’ve dedicated my life to raising our boys and making sure that they grew up to be men you would be proud of. I don’t regret any of it. It was never easy, being alone and raising them on my own. I couldn’t bear the thought of ever trying to replace you, though. No one could ever be the kind of example for them that you were and are._

 

_We never did get to go dancing. That, my darling, I will always regret. I hope that, wherever you are, you’re still waiting for me, partner. I’ll be there soon. But don’t pity me because I’m dying. I’m finally coming home to you. It’s been so long, but I’ve loved you more every day._

 

_I see so much of you in our boys. They have every bit of goodness in them that you did in you. Every moment I’ve had with them is a result of my love for you, and the life that I’ve been given with them is a reflection of my hopes for a life with you. I know this isn’t exactly the life you would have envisioned or wanted for me, especially the last few years when I’ve been so sick. Don’t worry about me, dear._

 

Peggy paused in her writing, relishing the pale blue tint on the edge of her palm from writing before the ink dried. It was an old-fashioned sort of pleasure in an era when most people typed up whatever they had to say. She had moved on with her life after Steve’s death and lived through the ages. She knew modern technology and culture, but sometimes she still just appreciated an old-fashioned habit or quirk. She liked to imagine that Steve would feel the same way, had he lived through to the modern day and age with her. 

 

She wasn’t afraid to face death. She wasn’t a particularly religious person, although she remembered Steve had been. She wondered what had gone through his head as the plane had crashed down. Had he been scared? Had he regretted it? She hoped he hadn’t experienced any pain. She wondered, often, where he was now. Surely if heaven were real, Steve of all people would be waiting there. Would she make it there to greet him?

 

 _I don’t really know what happens when we die,_ she continued. _Maybe you could tell me. Maybe you’re gone and there’s nothing left. I’ll find out soon, I suppose. Whatever the case may be, I hope that wherever it is that I end up, you’ll be there to meet me. If you’re not, I hope that it’s because by some miracle you survived, and you’re happy now, a healthy old man. I hope that someday you’ll come to meet me, if that’s the case. Until then, I’ll be waiting for the right partner, as I always have done. We’ll finally get that dance._

 

_I’ve always been and always will be yours._

 

_All my love, forever,_

_Peggy_

 

She signed the note with a flourish, careful not to smear the ink. “Boys?” she croaked out. Her sons immediately opened the door and entered, rushing to her bedside with worry clear on their faces.

 

“You okay, Mom?”

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

She smiled. “Nothing, dears. Could you do me a favor? One last chore for your old mom?”

 

“Anything.”

 

She blew on the paper, knowing they would wait to hear her request. Satisfied that the ink was totally dry, she carefully folded the note into an intricate paper plane. She held it out for the boys to see.

 

“Once I’m gone, take this plane and drive as far up the coast as you can. Once you’ve gotten as far north as possible, I need you to throw this note out into the Atlantic. Don’t put it in an envelope. Just the plane.” The boys shared a look, then nodded silently. “Good. Thank you, boys. I’m tired now, I think I’d like to take a nap.”

 

They nodded, each kissing her on the forehead before moving towards the door.

 

“I love you boys,” she called out as they were leaving.

 

“Love you, too, Mom.”

 

“Love you, Ma.”

 

The door clicked gently shut and Peggy soon drifted off to sleep. The last thing she saw before sleep overtook her was the letter lying on her bedside table. The only words visible were on the wings, _Dear Steve_ and _All my love, forever, Peggy._

 

\--------------

 

Steve stood on the edge of the beach, watching the waves lap at the shore. He had been awake in the twenty-first century for a few weeks now and had finally been given leave from SHIELD to go deal with the ghosts of his past. He found himself on a remote stretch of beach in upstate Maine gazing out into the North Atlantic. He had spent the last seventy years somewhere out there in the ice. It was such a lonely place, it was a wonder anyone had ever even found him.

 

He was so lost in contemplation that he almost missed two relatively elderly gentlemen get out of an old car and walk up to the water’s edge. They looked to be in their mid- to late-sixties. Steve wondered why they were here, on this remote patch of land so far from the rest of society.

 

One of the men took out a piece of paper from an inside jacket pocket. He smoothed it out and Steve realized the man was fixing creases in it. It was a small paper airplane, covered in blue ink. A letter, he realized. The paper was a paper plane with a letter written on it.

 

The man pressed the plane to his lips, then handed it to his companion. The other man kissed the plane as well, then together they tossed it out into the waves. They watched it float and bob for a few minutes before shuffling back to their car and driving off, never speaking a word.

 

Steve waited until he could no longer hear their car in the distance before stepping over to where they had been standing. An unusually strong wave hit the beach, carrying the plane back to shore.

 

Steve considered leaving it there and walking away. It was obviously an incredibly personal item to those men. It wouldn’t be right for him to intrude on the privacy and intimacy of that send-off.

 

He bent down to pick up the plane so he could throw it back in the water. He pulled his arm back, ready to hurl it past the waves, when something caught his eye.

 

_Dear Steve..._

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Aslyn's "Wally."


End file.
